


Those Who Repent

by coldcobalt



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Jewish Guilt(TM), Pre-Roche, pretentious as shit i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 17:44:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18628156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldcobalt/pseuds/coldcobalt
Summary: The rooftop lurches dangerously under Nite Owl’s feet, a sickening, disorienting slide that tilts the skyline at a forty-five degree angle. Fifty feet below him, the cobblestones of Varick Street swim in a dizzying arc.Nite Owl fasts for Yom Kippur. Rorschach disapproves.





	Those Who Repent

**Author's Note:**

> _"And the essence of Yom Kippur atones for those who repent, as it is written: 'this day will atone for you'." - Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance 1:3_  
>     
> Whoops, accidentally fell ass-first back into this fandom after ten years of lurking! Enjoy whatever this is.

The rooftop lurches dangerously under Nite Owl’s feet, a sickening, disorienting slide that tilts the skyline at a forty-five degree angle. Fifty feet below him, the cobblestones of Varick Street swim in a dizzying arc.

He sits down with a thud, knuckles white when he strips his gauntlets off. Across the tar-black rooftop, Rorschach turns in response.

\---

It's his first time fasting since Harvard—Dan doesn’t really know what he’s making amends _for_ , exactly, but his repeated beating of the New York City underworld to a bloody pulp seems a good place to start.  
It’s important work, essential even, but sometimes when he's knuckle-deep in violence, blood dripping from a would-be rapist's face to pool on the concrete, Dan finds himself asking: _is this the only way?_

But he’s out of practice being hungry, and no food and patrol antics are a poor mix; he’s at a complete caloric deficit, running on empty. A crest of white noise rises in his skull, formless and keening and, _god_ , this was a dumb fucking idea.

The sirens they’ve been following—a car alarm triggered by grand theft auto, followed by a pursuing flock of vehicles from the 6th Precinct—is starting to meld into the background hum of the city, their case’s trail cooling by the second. The way things are headed, the NYPD will be the ones getting the prize. 

Something stirs in the pre-dawn darkness and Rorschach appears at his side (silently, as always; six years of shared patrol and the muted grace of his partner is still just the slightest bit disconcerting), hands in his pockets, posture impeccable.

“Ill, Nite Owl?”

“No, I—” A hot wave of embarrassment rises up his arms, his neck. Ten-plus hours of training a week, two days of reconnaissance and innumerable more planning this route: all that prepwork down the drain just because he hasn’t eaten for twelve hours. Completely pathetic.

“—it’s Yom Kippur, I’m fasting." To illustrate, Dan's stomach growls. He cracks a sheepish grin he doesn't feel. “Guess I don’t work so well when I’m hungry.”

His partner's posture shifts, foreboding.

“Irresponsible”, Rorschach spits. “Frankly: idiotic.” The sudden arc of his shoulders betrays what his mask doesn’t: he’s angry, a sudden inferno of tight-leashed fury. “The King of Skin’s right-hand man is skipping town and you. _Handicap_ yourself.” The way he over-enunciates, it sounds like he’s gearing up for an outburst, sucking in air to spew the rest of his inevitable tirade. But something changes in the clench of his fists, and there’s a second of silence.

(Dan imagines sharp eyes narrowed behind white latex, burning.)

Two. Three.

And then:  
“Why.”

(Later, much later, Dan will learn the sordid details of his partner’s economic situation—treading water above the tideline of poverty, the poster child for food insecurity—and realize just how resentful Rorschach must have been, how the whole interaction had come off. A rich, spoiled asshole complaining about hunger to a starving man.)

“It’s atonement.” Dan says. Rorschach eyes him wordlessly with his monochrome face. “Penance. I don’t expect you to understand— I won’t do it again, but—”. The lazer-focus of Rorschach’s ire softens, nigh-imperceptibly.

And there it is. Because Dan knows he _does_.  
If there is anything he knows about his faceless partner, understands anything about the nameless man that lies at the center of a parade of blazing red flags, it’s this: penance is something that Rorschach comprehends all too well. He’s heard too much self-flagellation muttered under Rorschach’s breath to think anything else.

Somewhere in the distance, the sirens fade out to nothingness on the early-October air.

Rorschach waits with uncharacteristic patience for Dan to uncoil from his slouch.

By the time Dan has extricated himself—lightheaded, limbs heavy in a thoroughly unenjoyable way—there is a hand extended, a purple glove offered to help him to his feet.

“Advise other methods of atonement, Daniel.” Rorschach says. And then he’s gone, striding across the rooftop, leaving silence in his wake.

\----

The rest of patrol is mercifully uneventful. Rorschach does not speak again.

But his usual breakneck pace seems muted, and he loiters at the edge of each rooftop, at the foot of every fire escape, at each empty span of broken shadow, waiting for Nite Owl to catch up.


End file.
